Learning From the Past
by Cheridel
Summary: Buffy and Spike think about mistakes they made with their ex-lovers, while trying to figure out the next step in their own relationship. Buffy and Spike POVs Complete
1. Different From the Others l Buffy's POV

**Title:** Learning From the Past  
**Chapter 1:** Different From the Others - Buffy's POV  
**Author:** Cheridel  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Feedback:** Yes!  
**E-mail:** **Website:** http/cheridel. **Spoilers:** Up through Wrecked  
**Distribution:** Ask me first, please.  
**Disclaimer:** Buffy the Vampire Slayer is owned by WB, UPN, and Fox. Or one of the three.  
**Summary:** Buffy and Spike think about mistakes they made with their ex-lovers, while trying to figure out the next step in their own relationship. Buffy and Spike POVs

What am I going to do? This man, this vampire, has been around for me when my other boyfriends had vanished.

Angel, who I always considered my soul mate, became soulless after we made love. He had been my first. The next day, when I finally found him back in his apartment, I remember him saying that I had a lot to learn about men and in his opinion, I pretty much proved that when we were making love.

It slowly dawned on me that he thought the whole experience was terrible and he'd rather forget about it. I asked him if I was the problem. Was I the one who was not good? In a voice dripping with sarcasm and cruelty, he replied, "You were great, really! I thought you were a pro!" Then, he laughed at me, a nasty chuckle that broke my heart.

I guess my experience with Angel is one of the reasons why I am scared to fall in love with Spike. One minute, Spike can be so sweet, but the next minute, he can suddenly become cruel. There is no way of telling what will happen with him.

My one night stand with Parker is another example of how screwed up my love life is. I actually expected that he was going to take me in his arms and love me forever. God, how nave was I? He told me that he thought that I knew it was just for fun. I was convinced sooner or later he was going to apologize for dumping me and we were going to live happily ever after. Not convinced, more like obsessed. It was like I wanted to be in pain, almost like I was welcoming it.

Then, of course there was Riley. The first mistake he made was having sex with Faith while she was in my body. I can't believe he didn't know that wasn't me. I felt violated by the idea of somebody having intercourse with my body, while I was not in it. And why didn't he know that I wasn't myself? Why?

But finally, I realized that he would have had to be a mind reader in order to know that Faith was in my body and not me. I began to trust and depend on this sweet, but terribly innocent wannabe commando guy.

My life was going so well. I was in love with Riley and I had my friends and family. But that was all going to change.

Spike was the one who told me about Riley and his weird vampire bite fetish. He even took the liberty of showing me what Riley was doing. He was almost giddy that he was exposing Riley. I couldn't believe either of them. They both disgusted me.

But it was out in the open now, Buffy Anne Summers, once again, couldn't satisfy her boyfriend in bed. So much that he had to go seek out some vampy tramp whores to suck his blood and make him feel alive and needed, in a way that I couldn't. In a way I didn't want to.

After I missed Riley getting on the helicopter by a mere few seconds, my life went downhill from there. Finding out my sister was the Key, my mother's death, and finally, my own death.

But now I am back, among the living... and the undead, doing my slayer duties, while trying to fight my attraction to Spike. Damn him, he has all the right moves. I can't resist him.

The night after we first had sex, I tried to hurt him before he got the chance to hurt me, like Angel and Parker did. I told him he was just convenient roll in the hay. I was not going to be the one in pain this time. But my plan backfired. He told me that he had gotten his rocks back and wouldn't let me beat him down anymore.

But even after how horrible I've been to him, he still hasn't left.

He's different from the others. He won't leave me.

He won't leave because he knows I need him.

Damn him! I hate him! I hate him because he knows me better than I know myself. I hate him because he cares too much for Dawn. And Dawn looks at him as a father figure and a friend.

He protected her, even after I died. He stayed in Sunnydale to protect her, even though he had nothing to gain by doing so. He kept his promise.

He could fit into the family so perfectly... he is perfect for me and Dawn... which is why I have to fight him like the plague. I am the one who has to worry about Dawn, no one else.

I have made up my mind.

But still, he haunts me; his voice fills my head, painting erotic pictures, images of us together, naked, trembling, sated...

He tells me how good we are together... and we are. We honestly are...

No, no, what am I thinking? I hate him! He gets me so angry!

But he's the first person to make me feel alive since I came back from the dead. I don't want to let that go.

I don't want to let him go. I don't want to lose him.

What am I going to do?


	2. How Much Longer l Spike's POV

**Title:** Learning From the Past  
**Chapter 2:** How Much Longer - Spike's POV  
**Author:** Cheridel  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Feedback:** Yes!  
**E-mail:** **Website:** http/cheridel. **Spoilers:** Up through Wrecked  
**Distribution:** Ask me first, please.  
**Disclaimer:** Buffy the Vampire Slayer is owned by WB, UPN, and Fox. Or one of the three.  
**Summary:** Buffy and Spike think about mistakes they made with their ex-lovers, while trying to figure out the next step in their own relationship. Buffy and Spike POVs  
**A/N:** Thanks to SpikesPet and lesley for being fantastic betas.

Why won't she just accept the fact that I do love her? I love her more than I've ever loved anyone in my entire unlife. Or even when I was still alive and breathing.

Cecily... I still remember watching her from across the room. She was my light, bright, shimmering, and beautiful.

I was a pillock back then. I was so pathetic you might as well have stuck a big sign on me that said "Giant Poof Here!"

You see, I was a poet. A bloody awful poet. The local tossers called me "William the Bloody" just for that very reason.

I would sit off to the side like the silly wanker that I was and write poetry about the one I loved. One day, I even gathered up the guts to tell her how I felt.

Her response, "You're beneath me, William."

Soddin' bint.

That was the night I met Drusilla.

For a century, Dru and I raised hell all over Europe. Everyone and everything that happened to be in our path would end up as a bloody corpse by the time we got through we them. Me and Dru... those were some sweet times. I miss them.

Me and Dru eventually ended up in Sunnyhell. Idiot Czech mob thought they'd killed my girl. The Hellmouth would bring her back to life or unlife, rather. Then, Prague would burn.

Unfortuately, Sunnydale had a little Slayer problem. But I would fix that easily enough.

The first time I saw Buffy, she was dancing with Red and the whelp at the Bronze. I forgot all about her two friends and just watched her. The way her body moved, it was almost like she was having sex with the music. Only the Slayer can move like that. From that moment on, I knew she would be nothing but trouble. But then, I've always craved trouble.

A couple days after Dru and the Slayer's birthday, the Great Poof shows up... soulless. Seems that he and Buffy had themselves a good shag which gave Peaches a big happy and made him go all Mr. Hyde.

I thought it would be like old times, me, Dru, and Angelus together again... only he was more interested in how much pain he could cause me. I watched as he kissed and caressed Dru right in front of me. And the worst part was that she enjoyed it. She said she liked having me and Angelus fight over her. That's when I decided I had to get her away from our grand Sire, no matter what the cost.

On the eve of an apocalypse, I made a deal with the Slayer that allowed me and Dru to get out of town. Unfortunately, I had to knock Dru out because she was too worried about helping Peaches destroy the world.

After we got out of Sunny-D, Dru distanced herself from me. She thought I was less of a demon because I took her away from her Daddy. She was also quite upset that I had made a pact with the Slayer rather than killing her.

I still can't believe she was making out with a chaos demon. How could she think that ugly bugger was more of a demon that I was? She claimed that she needed to find her pleasure and that I tasted like ashes. She said when she looked at me, all she saw was the Slayer.

Dru really did know, even before she left me, that I had fallen in love with Buffy. Eventually, we went our separate ways. Somehow, I managed to pick the dumbest chit on the planet, living or dead, as my next girlfriend.

Just thinking about Harmony gives me a headache. Our relationship consisted of mainly shagging each other silly. She nagged at me all the time because I had yet to take her to soddin' France. If she hadn't been so great in bed, I would have killed her a long time ago.

Which brings me to my newest love: Buffy. I wish she would make up her mind about what she wants. First, it's "you're an evil, disgusting thing," to "I want you so badly" and ending with a "last night was the most perverse and degrading experience of my life."

I know she's the Slayer and I'm a vampire and that's what really bothers her. But it still amazes me how she can deny that my feelings for her aren't real love, especially after how hard I've tried to be what she wants and that I kept my promise to protect Dawn after she died.

How can she continue to hide the feelings that I know she has for me? I was the one she came to, not the whelp, not Red, not the Watcher or the Poofter... me! That has to mean something, right?

How much longer is she gonna play games with me? And how much longer am I going to let her get away with it?

I do know one thing, though. I won't allow her to step on me forever. I may have told her that I would be her willing slave, but I find now that I am not so willing anymore.


End file.
